U.S. oil imports are down, narrowing the trade deficit

There's news out today that the U.S. is importing less crude oil from foreign countries - the lowest amount in a decade. That's often bad news for the economy, but measured alongside oil exports, it looks like a good number. It means the trade gap is narrowing. The U.S. is spending less money on foreign crude oil, and other countries are actually buying refined oil from here.

But the funny thing is, other countries are not buying U.S. oil from U.S. refineries.

"We are basically importing crude oil from other countries," says Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at the University of California, Davis. "Then we are bringing it to our country, refining it, using what we need, and of the refinery output that we do not need, we're exporting that for a profit."

A Gulf Coast refinery might spin Venezuelan crude into diesel fuel, and send it to Mexico, for example. The refineries make money on this, but it doesn't lower gas prices here. So why send refined fuel away?

"Because we have no pipelines or not enough pipelines from East Coast to the Gulf Coast, to move that extra product, " says John Hofmeister, a former oil executive now running the nonprofit Citizens for Affordable Energy. He says U.S. laws and infrastructure don't allow fuel to flow freely around the country.

About the author

Eve Troeh is News Director at WWNO-FM in New Orleans, La., helping build the first public radio news department in the station’s 40-year history. She reported for the Marketplace Sustainability Desk from 2010 to 2013.